South Canterbury Times MONDAY, NOOVEMBER 26, 1900.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2952, 26 November 1900, Page 2

South Canterbury Times MONDAY, NOOVEMBER 26, 1900.

Mr Hogben’s address to the meeting of teachers on Saturday will have served, to those who heard, and to whose who read our full report of it, to make clear the scope of the Manual and Technical Instruction Act, though it goes a very little way towards showing what is meant by Manual and Technical Instruction. One of Mr Hogben’s questioners wished to know what to do and how it was to be done. The address, and the answers to questions, indicated how “ classes ” may be formed ; but what to teach them, and how to teach them when formed, were puzzles not elucidated. For instruction on these points we must wait for the issue of the Deschemes of instruction, and the explanations and suggestions of the “ organising ” officers who are to be appointed. It is to be hoped these will be persons possessed of practical experience of the sort of classes they are to (organise; and ,if there are none such available in the colony they should be sent Home for. It will be mischievous, that is, worse than useless, to appoint men who have merely book knowledge of the work they will have to do. It will be useless to set about forming classes until the scope and manner of teaching them are properly understood. The Department and the Legislature have put the cart before the horse, in framing an Act to facilitate the establishment of a new set of classes before anything is known of what these classes are to do. It is a case of legislation in advance of demand for it, and it is to be feared that in eagerness of people to “do something ’ the cart will be set rolling down some steep place before the horse is hitched to it.

A leading Liberal paper in London publishes a map of the Metropolitan constituencies shaded to show how they returned party candidates at the recent election, and the map is branded “ A Black Spot.” Political London returned fiftythree Conservatives and Liberal-Unionists, and eight Liberals! No wonder the Liberal party look upon political London as a “ black spot.” The classification of members, however, by ?no means classifies the voters. There were contests in fortyseven of the electorates, and the totals of votes cast in these cases were—Conservatives (37 members), 165,852; LiberalUnionists (2), 11,211;Liberals (8), 124,214. The votes recorded totalled 301,277, an average of 6410 per member. But the thirty-seven Conservative members averaged only 4482 votes, the Unionists 5605, while the eight Liberals represent an average of 15,526 votes cast for that Party. “ Had the Liberal aggregate vote secured seats in proportion to the general average of 6410 votes, it would have returned nineteen instead of eight of the 47 members. Twelve uncontested seats all went to the Conservatives.

An Englishman who has spent some years in the United States was impelled- by re, ports of rowdy meetings during the late Parliamentary campaign at Home, to write an article contrasting the behaviour of British and American political meetings. He says that it is only British doggedness some would say stupidity —which makes Britishers believe that they are an orderly and law-abiding people, and their crowds the best-humoured and most chivalrous under the sun. They may be so, compared with some countries. “ But there is one country where the riotousness which we put up with as a matter of course would not bc( tolerated for a moment, and where, indeed, our whole claim to restrained and orderly conduct in the management of our political campaigns is disputed. That country is America.” He goes on to say that however strongly any party cause is “boomed,” the opposite party is always courteously treated, its speaker on the platform is listened to meetings never broken up. Tt is the first of all rules at American political meetings that lire speaker shall be quietly listened to, and the police at once come down on any one who presumes to check the progress of the speaker, however clumsy he may be, and turns them out “ as an offence to decency and good manners.” The speaked on the platform is listened to “ with the same respect as a parson in the pulpit or an actor on the stage.” Timaru people, we are gratified to know, usually conform to the American standard of “ decency and good manners ” in this respect,

but occasionally lapse into the bad old British way. Perhaps the mention of the fact that our brethren across the water set so admirable an example may arouse in us the determination to follow it in all cases.